DW

Yes although DIY in my case. I cant the boot, the liners are heat moldable, and have some specific inserts to get the fit I want. No idea if there are any ‘professional’ water ski boot fitters. You might try the roller blade industry given that’s what hard boots evolved from.

@FunoRyota - you have come to the right place, if anybody can answer your question it is @Horton. He has tested many skis. Each ski and ski manufacturer is different, for me there are several brands I am comfortable on and several I simply do not enjoy or perform well on. The best approach is to have each skier test as many as they can before they commit to buying one. Good luck.

For one of the collegiate skiers - a free body diagram with all the load paths detailed 😆

@101driver - Very happy so far with my transition. The Reflex is more responsive laterally, provides me with much better feel and control. I really noticed the improvement not as much on the A>B but when I did a B>A swap! I felt like I was swimming in the Animal and lost a lot of the control. I have a US 10 size foot and used small Animals so they were super tight on my feet. My foot is very narrow. My analysis - as you use the hard-shell you calibrate your movements to a more secure / responsive setup so when you go back to previous it is quite the change. I also feel that the liner you pick is very important to get a proper fit in the boot. Finding the perfect location (Hortons thread on that is excellent) along with learning the correct binding tension setting etc. does take some time to dial in. As you read through some of the other threads on this site, it does become apparent there is still a ways to go to 'perfect' the hard-shell system and thankfully people are still introducing improvements. Have fun on the hard shell journey.

I migrated from Animals to the Reflex plate version and am very satisfied, done prior to the DC roll out. With the added maintenance to ensure the hardshell system is all good, I think going with the plate does reduce one variable you have to learn & adjust to.

Sun / UV exposure is also key in rope decay. Do your best to keep ropes out of the sun when not in use. As Horton noted, rope stretch has a decay function over # sets. Different ropes and rope length all factor in the equation. Shoulder / joint pain x age has a direct relationship to rope stretch. @101driver - you need to add a few columns to the spreadsheet, distance travelled on your ski, #buoys rounded, liters of fuel per buoy, etc 🤣😂 You note 1860 liters consumed over 189 hours, that is impressive fuel economy for a tournament ski boat, typical usage is in the 4-5 US gallons / hour. Unless I fat fingered the conversion you average 2.5 gals/hr.

Not that I can see, looks like a good solution. Tell the pup not to overtighten the screws. I assume you can get the boot forward enough to avoid any plate interference when you go for final assembly. I have trimmed many plates to get boots close enough together.

The single plate concept is a good solution and my approach would be to remove the existing bottom plates and attach both bindings to the single plate. Advantages - no added weight to the binding package (assuming your full length plate weighs same/close to the individual plates), both boots move together and existing footbed height remains as current. Disadvantages - you will want a good drill press or mill as all the little holes and slots will keep you busy, rear boot rotation will require full plate removal and you will have to create the accommodating slots or holes to facilitate. Or, slot the existing rear plate to accommodate the move and use star washers to hopefully eliminate slippage. Note - I observe that my rear boot will migrate to it's favorite position rather than staying put so that tells me a fair amount of rotational torque is exerted by the rear foot. Kind of a hint on why rear RTP's are in favor.

I had the opportunity to stop in to his little shop in Deltona and chat about (at the time) his new project, the Infinity and take a ride behind one. As an engineerng nerd it was a fun conversation as that boat incorporated a lot of innovative ideas. Skiing it was fun and as I recall, spotter was one CP. I really appreciated the time he took to basically 'entertain' some guy off the street and get a chance to sample the product. Industry is lucky to have so many down to earth people. Cool video.

The pro angler will certainly migrate to an enclosed trailer, it is after all a huge advertising billboard for any sponsors:-) The escalating costs of water sports boats could also be a catalyst to offer a less harsh trailering option for a 300k+ boat along with the 'look at me' gratification.

Prop wash is a powerful force, data is not readily available for the watersports community, plenty of it under lock and key for military applications. The depth will be directly related to prop angle in motion, torque input to prop, prop speed, etc. There will be a significant depth difference between a ski boat on plane v a heavily laden wake boat at peak surf wave attitude. Maverick's suggestion above is a logical, low cost method of trying to capture some data although people will be free to interpret it as they wish. It is a topic starting to see discussion with the wake boat issues and property owner complaints on erosion, property destruction, etc. Facts are a hard thing when the opposition argument is very emotional. No data from the paper although several references are included: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0029801813002989 Some visuals included in this one: https://www.sva-potsdam.de/en/adm-juli-2016/ I would research any potential University studies for data, that is probably to best source of available, low cost (free) information containing facts.

Enclosed boat trailer is simply trailing the rest of the hobby / expensive toy segments by a few decades. Give this a few years, it will be all the rage.

Cool table but I like the phone.

I lean towards filling the filter as that reduces time to achieve oil pressure after change and I use the truck version oil filter which tends to be larger.

Given the timing one could assume the complainant is using some of the wake boat studies to push their assumption. The U of Minnesota study is the only one that attempts to use a ski boat in the comparison that I have found. It does not address turbulence depth from the propwash. From pure visual observation my analysis points toward no significant impact at depths exceeding ~ 6'. I moved my lift a couple of years ago and the sediment under and behind the boat has not been cleared over the 2 years which includes at least 200+ lift entries and that would be less than 4' depth. It is very interesting that when we ski, the birds tend to come towards the boat to look for prey, one could extrapolate the prop wash actually is good for lake health. As noted, phosphorus is from lawn fertilizer, I don't believe aeration is a contributor. Invasive species are a much more egregious problem in the Great Lakes region, of which water fowl and non resident boats are the significant contributors. There are several lake management companies and active universities that probably can provide good and 'accepted' insight. Good luck.

Hopefully CT has an option for you: https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/search-results.html?q=engine oil Amazon can be your friend for oil or additives.

Ski friends have said same, sure path has improved the driving from out of tolerance to in tolerance. Example of technology providing a nice benefit, and yet not taking the task away from the human. Thus, simply improving human skillset. Win-Win.

@Than_Bogan - a good ear and a hammer 😆

Very hard to do but rebound could be measured by video at a very high frequency capture rate, akin to hitting a tuning fork. I do feel a torsion test would be of value , it is a standard in the automotive motorsports environment. The one test I found to work, have two skis setup exactly the same (a known good or new one & the one in question) and go ski the course. The experiment I was able to run using this technique left me feeling that the one in question seemed to have a slip angle or downcourse slide (did not hold edge as well) across the wakes. For me personally, I could not tell or feel if the turn radius had changed although I felt the start point of going cross course was still the same. In this case I was really lucky as I had two skis from the very same batch or born by date to give me more confidence of a valid test.

McMaster Carr sells the full spectrum of screws in bulk. A dab of anti seize during installation will help the corrosion issue but handle carefully. I’ve had luck cleaning with brake clean or carb cleaner (can with a dip bin so you can let them soak in the solution).

@swbca - until you change the title, not important as 'average' will quickly become 'ex'. For most, you should not be the instructor, find someone else she will listen to. That should lead to a good result. As an observation, transitioning drivers from reactionary to proactive is a key to having a great pull, although that takes a lot of repetitions.

@tjs1295 - perhaps direct from GM supply may diminish although currently there is a huge aftermarket supply base to provide any SBC variant. In the case of repowering old boats, the hot rod industry could be the savior as that demand is high and keeps the crate engine business going.

If you still want one (6.0) you will need access to alternative fuels: https://poweredsolutions.gm.com/products/6l-lc8/ As Jody notes, the mfg's (boat) do rat hole stuff when things are discontinued or regulation changes are imminent. With any GM V8 power unit there tends to be a large aftermarket supplier base. One can ground up build a Gen 1 SBC from aftermarket parts in almost an infinite number of power and displacement levels.

@tru-jack - it was noted that Mikaela picked a ski outside her allotment for a specific discipline, it was from one of her competitor / Atomic teammates stash. In addition to the characteristics noted for a ski degrading, fin box stiffness or degradation / change will also have a significant effect on ski performance. JTH - at the elite motorsport level, specifically F1/Indycar etc. the tolerances are down to thousandths for numerous measurements (shocks, aero, ground clearance). Relating to skis, numerous stories of a team / driver changing the chassis to fix a recalcitrant car. I've experienced that very thing in a formula car. Or maybe no matter what the sport, humans simply whine about something and yes sometimes its mental.

@aupatking - your problem is obvious, the cure is to send me a few of those skis. That should cut back on ‘choosing stress’ so you can focus on skiing 😂